David Alvarez is best known as a San Diego City Councilman vying to be the city’s next mayor, but when asked during a recent debate why he’s described as an educator in campaign literature, he joked, “I educate the council all the time when we’re making decisions.”

Joking aside, Alvarez said he deserves the teacher label because he previously taught youngsters reading and writing in an after-school program. Likewise, his mayoral rival, Nathan Fletcher, who’s identified on the ballot as an “educator/businessman,” points out he’s taught political science classes at UC San Diego as a “professor of practice.”

In a tight race, where contenders are looking for every possible way to connect with voters, the educator moniker might be considered a stretch — although not necessarily a misstatement, say analysts.

“It kind of reminds me of those commercials on TV where they say, ‘I’m not a doctor but I played one on TV,’” said Carl Luna, a Mesa College political science professor. “Neither of them are what you call professional educators but they played the role on occasion. For both of them, at this stage in their educational experience, it’s a bit of a reach, although with Fletcher he is on faculty, and Alvarez was more an amateur educator.”

It’s not surprising that the two Democratic candidates — or their campaigns — would try to capitalize on their educator backgrounds, no matter how nontraditional they may appear, says Democratic political consultant Chris Crotty, who is not affiliated with any of the candidates running in next Tuesday’s special election to replace former Mayor Bob Filner.

A teaching background, says Crotty, has a strong resonance with voters, and especially so with Democrats.

“They use it because it polls well, and educator polls better than teacher,” Crotty noted. “But if you see ‘teacher,’ and you don’t like labor unions, you think teachers union, and you end up turning a positive into a negative. But if you use the more generic educator, it’s broader and can cover anything from kindergarten all the way up to college and professional school.”

In a recent mailer produced by Alvarez’s campaign, he’s identified as “educator, social-services provider and councilmember with the experience and commitment to lead the city.” And in another campaign piece produced by the American Federation of Teachers union, he’s described as a former teacher.

Alvarez says he’s perfectly comfortable with the educator descriptor, having taught classes for 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students when he was employed by the Barrio Logan College Institute, which prepares young people for college. The classes took place after the children’s normal school instruction for the day was finished. He also calls himself a health educator, having worked with the Family Health Centers of San Diego instructing kids about how to guard against teen pregnancy and contracting HIV and AIDS.

“I think the word teacher can be misleading. My wife is a teacher so I know what it’s like to be a teacher,” Alvarez said. “As I campaign, I’m using the term educator, which is more encompassing of the kind of work I’ve done. I think that’s a fairer description.”

A former state assemblyman and now an executive with Qualcomm, Fletcher mentions in the sample ballot’s lengthier candidate description that he’s also a Marine Corps veteran, professor and father.

He assumed a newly created “professor of practice” position at UC San Diego after failing to make the runoff in last year’s mayoral election and over the course of two quarters, taught two classes, one on California politics and government, the other on campaigns and elections. He took a quarter off for the mayoral campaign, but says it’s a position he hopes to return to, “win or lose.”

“It’s a reflection of what you do. I work at Qualcomm, and I teach in the professor position at the University of California, both things I’m proud of,” Fletcher said. “Voters look at what you’ve done, and that all filters into the decision they make.”

Nancy Farnan, interim associate dean in the College of Education at San Diego State University, said she believes educator is a more apt label for both Alvarez and Fletcher, but thinks “former teacher” can give a wrong impression.

“Typically with teacher, we think about teaching in a classroom with 10th graders or 4th graders. You wonder what grade did he teach,” she said. “To call (the after-school instruction) a former teacher creates an implication that may not be quite accurate, at least how most people would interpret that term.”

Former SDSU College of Education Dean Ric Hovna says he prefers to takes a less literal view of the educator and teaching references.

“I’m not particularly bothered by it,” he said. “I’d probably lean a bit more toward the less cynical view of it and more toward a view that if they take pride in the fact that they’ve done work as an educator, I’d see that as an affirmation of the importance of teaching.”